Endurance

Elk hunting is just about the most physically and mentally challenging big game hunting there is in the lower 48. A typical day in pursuit of wapiti begins well before sunrise often around 4:00 AM.The distance to your stand and a good uphill climb can push your wake up call up to 2:00-3:00 AM. Breakfast can range from a hot bowl of oatmeal to a power bar and a cup of coffee. Your day will consist of hiking, spotting, calling, and checking the wind constantly over and over again until well after dark. You may cover as much as twelve miles a day and little of that will be on flat ground. You return to camp beat and feeling like you have been road hard and put away wet, day after day. Each morning you get up and do it all over again in the hopes that one day will provide you with the opportunity to have a shot at that elusive Ghost of the Quakies.

Sound tough, you bet it is. Am I trying to talk you out of your hunt? Absolutely not...but if I can...then you are really not ready for this.

Endurance is not just about being in good physical shape, while that does help a lot. It can also mean having a plan as to how you are going to make your own physical and mental resources last and stay focused until the final hour of the final day of your hunt. Without such a plan even someone who runs marathons all summer long can succumb.

Endurance is about pacing yourself. When you step out of camp, you are already in elk country. Your hunt begins immediately. While you may have a way to go to a particular stand, elk country is full of elk and they are continually on the move. The possibility of you encountering a bull or a cow exists all the time. Be alert, go slow, try your best to know where the wind is all the time. Above all, take your time.

If you are heading uphill...and you are almost always headed up or down a hill, don’t try climbing what you think is the short route or straight up! Take the hill at an angle and a shallow angle at that. Better yet, find game trails that follow contours and follow these. Some folks poo..poo walking on game trails. Folks, every summer those “game trails” get hammered by backpackers and hikers from May until September. Your walking on one will make little to no difference to the elk but it may make a lot of difference to you. Game trails often run in sets of parallel trails. So if the going on one gets too tough move up or down hill as appropriate and locate another.

Break up your day with stops for spotting and rest. Find a perch where you can look over a far slope or drainage and spend some time in your binoculars looking for elk or sign of elk. Depending upon the amount of terrain you are glassing, this can take up to an hour to do effectively before moving on and repeating the entire process.

I like to plan my day to hunt in a circle or a loop so that I end up near to the point where I started. Some folks like to hunt a straight line out and back. By doing this you are really limiting the amount of country that you can cover.

If you get tired, rest. If you need sleep, take a nap. If your hungry, eat. Keeping up your energy level is critical for endurance. Make sure that you continue to hydrate throughout the day. I use a hydration bladder for carrying water. This way I have the tube right on my shoulder and I can get it with little effort. Why is this important? We need to drink a lot more than we think. If one waits until he is thirsty, he is already well on the road to dehydration.

Go slower. A friend of mine who just harvested a nice 400 class bull in 2008 with a bow is well into his sixties. He will be the first to tell you that as he has aged, his hunting has gotten slower and guess what. The slower he goes, the more elk he encounters.

Finally, endurance is about mental preparation. For all of us there will come a time when our bodies cry out, I have had enough. If the hunt still has time to run, this is where your personal discipline has to kick in and help you over the hump. Pacing yourself helps a lot, but having prepared yourself mentally for that point where your body wants to give up is what will often carry you through until the end of the hunt.

Those who seek knowledge kill more elk than those who do not! For a lot more information on elk and elk hunting please consider purchasing one or all of my top-selling books on the subject. Click here.

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